Meet our volunteers,

In December 2016, Health Emergency Management BC reached out to St. John Ambulance to ask for help in saving lives suffering from the Opioid Overdose Crisis. SJA deployed volunteers to add capacity to the Downtown East Side and Surrey 135a and during this time we trained 100 SJA Medical First Responder Volunteers on Naloxone administration. SJA-BCY, in partnership with the BC Centre for Disease Control and with endorsement from the Provincial Health Officer, developed an education and training course to teach people how to administer Naloxone and provide artificial respiration and connected with community partners to have volunteer Medical First Responders Services support the overdose response measures in place.

Our volunteers added capacity to the Health Authority's response in supporting efforts on 135a Street's "Tent City" from December 2016-June 2018, when the "Tent City' was disbanded in a multi-day activity that saw the homeless moved to supported housing and temporary shelters. During this time, SJA volunteers provided medical first response services to both city/health authority staff and the clients being moved and housed in an unprecedented level of activity and engagement by our volunteers. 

As of the June 2018 our volunteers have intervened in 134 suspected opioid overdoses and saved the life each of those 134 people who overdosed on 135a Street in Surrey, BC. 

Jacob Lee joined this initiative from the beginning in Dec. 2016 and took over in a leadership capacity in the spring of 2017, when he was just 17 years old. He led this initiative and was the point of contact for both outreach charities directly supporting the homeless and Fraser Health Authority. He scheduled volunteers and ensured that SJA had presence "on the Surrey strip," as it is known, for 18 consecutive months.

Jacob himself used Naloxone and Artificial Respiration to reverse an incredible 87 opioid overdoses - that means that there are 87 families who have Jacob to thank for their loved one waking up from an overdose.

He did so outdoors in every kind of weather, rain or shine, morning, noon and night in an environment that was challenging. It is unlikely that there is another SJA volunteer who has saved more lives in his SJA uniform and for this reason he is more than deserving of our Life Saving Award - Gold.